Brought a couple of WDTV Live-SMP refurb models from Amazon a few years ago. Been sitting in my closet since then.

All this time I have been using my trusty old WDTV Live model. After reading this and some of the other WDTV Live-SMP threads. And after giving the old WDTV Live model to my niece. I decided to hook up the WDTV Live-SMP last night.

Still plays all my K-Dramas in 720/1080p mkv, avi, & mp4 files. Only thing I would probably use is UTube to play more KBS K-Drama, Music, & Variety shows. Might also give Netflix a try also.

The grid UI is pretty useless if you need to access files as far as I can tell. All it seems to offer is a new way of dealing with services, which I don't use. I went back to the Mochi theme rather quickly. The grid UI doesn't seem to give any access to local or network storage! Strange thing.

Actually, you can get access but its not intuitive. Somehow I popped up a left side menu which gave me the choice of "All." Looking through there I found a "Music" tile which got me to my NAS and my music.

I'll probably end up back with the old theme as I haven't seen any real advantage given I mostly use my WD to stream local network content.

Actually, you can get access but its not intuitive. Somehow I popped up a left side menu which gave me the choice of "All." Looking through there I found a "Music" tile which got me to my NAS and my music.

I'll probably end up back with the old theme as I haven't seen any real advantage given I mostly use my WD to stream local network content.

I saw that - red or yellow key I think - but I thought All was just to display all services rather than one of the subsets - I'll have another look.

But if Home can't be changed to something other than Services this has to be the worst UI design since Edlin.

OK so I added Videos to Home, deleted everything else, opened Videos and added each share to Home. So I get Media Lib:Folder View with same content as before, but without option to display as a list so I only see half of the share names. It saves me one press of OK.

As far as I can tell, ML is still the only way to aggregate multiple shares into one view.

My ML has always just been the share root folders, but if I wanted subfolders in the aggregate view, the ability to add links to Home seems like a definite improvement vs. having to add them to ML.

I updated the firmware successfully last night and decided to stay with the old theme. I went to check out the YouTube app, and saw there are now two. I haven't used YouTube on my WD TV Live in a long time (mostly use my xbox), so I was confused what's going on. I also couldn't sign in to YouTube with my regular login. Is there some trick to this?

Just looking at the latest firmware release and the new Grid UI option. So far, has anyone found any significant advantages or disadvantages in comparison to the standard Mochi theme?

Regards,

Lt. Dang

I think at this point it is all just a matter of taste. I installed the update on one of my Live-SMP's and it left everything alone at the UI level. I had to go into the setup menu to find the selection for the Grid UI. So there is no reason to Not install the update to get any of the fixes -- I'll probably do the rest of them tonight.

So you can easily stick with Mochii or go with Grid -- it's just a matter of taste and whether you like the look of a tablet/cell phone UI or not.

- kelson h

The bitterness of poor quality lasts long after the sweetness of the low price is forgotten . . . life is too short to drink bad wine

I think at this point it is all just a matter of taste. I installed the update on one of my Live-SMP's and it left everything alone at the UI level. I had to go into the setup menu to find the selection for the Grid UI. So there is no reason to Not install the update to get any of the fixes -- I'll probably do the rest of them tonight.

So you can easily stick with Mochii or go with Grid -- it's just a matter of taste and whether you like the look of a tablet/cell phone UI or not.

I think at this point it is all just a matter of taste. I installed the update on one of my Live-SMP's and it left everything alone at the UI level. I had to go into the setup menu to find the selection for the Grid UI. So there is no reason to Not install the update to get any of the fixes -- I'll probably do the rest of them tonight.

So you can easily stick with Mochii or go with Grid -- it's just a matter of taste and whether you like the look of a tablet/cell phone UI or not.

For me it was the first time I ever had to do a Rollback. I liked the Grid UI, messed up my Network Shares. It would be slow or freeze up. Only on Shares

For me it was the first time I ever had to do a Rollback. I liked the Grid UI, messed up my Network Shares. It would be slow or freeze up. Only on Shares

Are you wired or WiFi? No problems for my 3 network shares on WiFi so far. I have my fingers crossed that maybe the new FW will fix my intermittent slow connection problem - it's been a few weeks so I'm about due for a recurrence...

Are you wired or WiFi? No problems for my 3 network shares on WiFi so far. I have my fingers crossed that maybe the new FW will fix my intermittent slow connection problem - it's been a few weeks so I'm about due for a recurrence...

I had to pull the plug, which I should have done anyway, and force a reboot after the FW update. My sling connection kept dropping every 20 seconds or so. After reboot it was rock solid again going for several hours. Shares and everything works and plays fine like before. I'll go around an update my other 2 this afternoon.

So what's the verdict on this FW upgrade? As usual, if it ain't broke...

None of the new "features" are important to me but I'm interested to see if it might work a little better than before in my WiFi multiple network share setup. So far so good but my problems were intermittent so it will take a while to see if they have shuffled off this mortal coil for good...

If you haven't had any problems and the new features aren't important to you I would hold off on the update for now. But OTOH you may end up having to do it eventually to get the next iteration so it's more a matter of when, not if...

Alright.. I updated the firmware..no problems that I can see so far..I have a 1 terebyte hard drive..my M2ts movies play perfectly well.. and they are all there where they are supposed to be, no problems there.. but I AM wondering.. in Netflix.. what is goin' on? Sure.. Netflix indicates that I am receiveing 720 HD.. BUT then also indicates a setting for most tv shows and movies of 1080 SD.. SD? Is this a NEW catagory of High Definition video that I wasn't aware of ? ;>) Just wondering.. the colors seem to be overbright as well,, this is at low color setting on my Samsung.. the picture also seems to be not as sharply defined as it was before the update of the firmware.. that is.. I seem to have a softer picture..but - maybe that's just these old eyes.. sigh.. BUT I AM wondering about that 1080 SD setting.. wonder WHY they have this setting? Thanks.. ~

but I AM wondering.. in Netflix.. what is goin' on? Sure.. Netflix indicates that I am receiveing 720 HD.. BUT then also indicates a setting for most tv shows and movies of 1080 SD.. SD? Is this a NEW catagory of High Definition video that I wasn't aware of ? ;>) Just wondering.. the colors seem to be overbright as well,, this is at low color setting on my Samsung.. the picture also seems to be not as sharply defined as it was before the update of the firmware.. that is.. I seem to have a softer picture..but - maybe that's just these old eyes.. sigh.. BUT I AM wondering about that 1080 SD setting.. wonder WHY they have this setting? Thanks.. ~

It's a glitch. Weirdness has happened to the display before after updates to the app on the PS3 in the past. It was corrected when the techs noticed it.

Navigating movies has always been a snap but it's TV show episodes that have become painfully slow. All movies and TV shows are ripped, turned into MKV and copied onto the USB Drive using the same tools. This slow activity starts once the “Get Content Info” is finished. Whether the shows are put in their own directory or thrown right on the root as soon as I navigate past a string of TV show episodes it stalls for about 2-4 seconds navigating from episode to episode. If I attempt to hit the options button on the remote when a TV show is highlighted there is an equal pause of about 2-4 seconds just to bring up the menu of options. Once I'm past the show and back into movies it's lightning fast navigating and using the options button until I hit another string of TV show episodes. Doesn't matter if the MKV come from a blurray source or DVDs.

Have done all the regular stuff...reset the box, formatted the hard drive and populated it with only MKV files with or without the media library on. Once that show has retrieved its content info the TV show navigation turns to molasses. Can't figure this one out. It started in the past couple of months and I don't think there has been a firmware update for quite a while now so I don't know what has changed. Has anyone had similar experience?

Nevermind...it's been over a month since any TV shows were watched and somehow “check firmware updates” was left on just in time to start watching TV shows again. Turns out rolling back the firmware solved the issue that nasty bug filled firmware WD released last week and everything is back to normal. Here I thought they had forgotten about this little wonder box...after a week of banging my head against the wall I kinda wished they had.

Nevermind...it's been over a month since any TV shows were watched and somehow “check firmware updates” was left on just in time to start watching TV shows again. Turns out rolling back the firmware solved the issue that nasty bug filled firmware WD released last week and everything is back to normal. Here I thought they had forgotten about this little wonder box...after a week of banging my head against the wall I kinda wished they had.

I haven't had any trouble with the new FW - ~4800 TV episodes on 3 WiFi shares. I don't use content info though - with too many "incorrect" file names and slow DSL it was really bogging down...

I haven't had any trouble with the new FW - ~4800 TV episodes on 3 WiFi shares. I don't use content info though - with too many "incorrect" file names and slow DSL it was really bogging down...

It would be an interesting test though...if you let it scrape about 3 episodes via any lookup results and then try to navigate past them in the list. I don't know anyone with a WD that has it hooked up to the internet.

It would be an interesting test though...if you let it scrape about 3 episodes via any lookup results and then try to navigate past them in the list. I don't know anyone with a WD that has it hooked up to the internet.